Anyone here ever used the Tarrasque succesfully?

[Mark Hope]

I take the view that there is only one Tarrasque, anywhere in the multiverse.

Well, if you use the old Spelljammer supplement Practical Planetology, there are actually several hundred of them living on the planet Falx ...

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Any level 20 (should've been able to fly much sooner than level 20) party worth it's salt can fly. Big T can't, enough said.

IMC two level 23 melee types beat it with out any spell caster (though one of them had couple levels of wizard and cleric) support one of them just read a scroll of wish at the end. Tough battle though.

 

[JoeGKushner]

In first ed, from the Monster Manual II, one of the GM's read it as being 3 feet tall! We were fighting this thing for like over two hours before the GM realized his mistake and said it hopped into the forest.

We were glad to see it go.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I used it towards the end of a long-running homebrew 2e game. The world was going to pieces and in that game the tarrasque was a fallen deity cursed to roam the earth. It was wandering about the place eating the high priests of the other gods in a sort of twisted revenge so the PCs gathered together a small army and went after it.

Instead of requiring a wish spell to kill it, I ruled that they needed a McGuffin that would completely remove its last divine connections to the planes and allow them to permanently kill it (they had to venture right down to the lowest levels of my world's version of WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins to get the Mc Guffin, which I figured was a better solution than just using a 9th-level spell).

The battle raged across the countryside, finally ending up in my world's version of the ruins of Myth Drannor. The entry of a semi-divine being into the mythal caused the mythal to permanently collapse (after becoming momentarily visible as a coruscating dome of energy when the tarrasque passed through its outer edge). There were a few PC deaths but the beast was finally slain in the ruins. And there was much rejoicing.

Your 2e party had trouble with it? We killed it in 1 round, and our party was 13th-level! The 2e tarrasque was a wimp.

 

[the black knight]

Yeah, the guy who wrote the Apocalypse Stone used it quite effectively.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I've never used the Tarrasque. Once. It always seemed so bland and flavorless to me, little more than a bunch of potent abilities stuffed into a package.

Well, they couldn't use Godzilla for copyright reasons...

But I don't think the Tarrasque is bland. It's simply a huge engine of mindless destruction (as opposed to intelligent monsters like ancient dragons). It is only bland if you use it without a context - as a random encounter in the wilderness, for example.

It's better to use it in the following way: The Tarrasque has been sighted, and it is heading into the direction of your city. And none of the inhabitants is anywhere nearl level 20 - including you - and no one has a Wish or Miracle spell available, either.

So, what do you do?


In this scenario, it is even perfectly possible to create adventures for first level characters. The news of the approaching monster will cause widespread panic and chaos as everyone attempts to flee, which offers plenty of opportunities for heroic deeds - or profit. Higher level characters will quest for the power to destroy it - or, more realistically, to distract it into another direction. How about trying to lure it to the neighboring kingdom you have been at war with? But perhaps they have done the same to you, and this is the reason why the Tarrasque is attacking your city! There could be desperate fights between different groups and organizations breaking out near the Tarrasque about who gets to lure him where - but of course, the party that gets too close to the Tarrasque and attracts its attention looses automatically...

To sum it up, don't stage the appearance of the Tarrasque as a combat encounter. Stage it as a disaster movie!

 

[Mark Hope]

Your 2e party had trouble with it? We killed it in 1 round, and our party was 13th-level! The 2e tarrasque was a wimp.

Yes, they had considerable trouble. The party ranged from 12th to 17th level - but those comparisons don't really mean as much as they do under 3e, given that there were no set wealth levels for characters of a given level as there are now. I used to run a pretty magic-rare 2e game.

Ahem. And that said, I should also clarify by saying that my 2e tarrasque was buffed considerably from the one in the Monstrous Manual. Digging out my battered old ringbinder, I note that it had AC -15, 500 hp, 70% Magic Resistance (in addition to its reflective carapace), regenerated 10 hp per round, could cast any spell of levels 1-10 at will and could take two rounds worth of action in one round. After all, the idea was that it was an earthbound god ...

The McGuffin in question was used to zap its divine chakras that connected it to the planes. It had nine, iirc, and each one that was succesfully zapped with the McGuffin stripped it of one level of divine power. So zapping the True Dweomer chakra stripped it of its power to cast 10th-level spells, zapping the Manifold chakra reduced it to taking one round of actions each round, zapping the Godsform chakra reduced its physical powers and magic resistance etc etc. After all chakras had been zapped, it was the big bag of hit points and damage that is in the Monstrous Manual, which could then be killed as normal. So, the trouble came largely with surviving the creature's semi-divine onslaughts while poor Stig Olaf took pot-shots at it with the Eye and Lens of Tuvaanis (the aforementioned McGuffin).

As you correctly note, the RAW 2e tarrasque was no real challenge for a high-level group and, with my campaign in its final phases, I decided that something a little more epic was in order.

 

[gamecat]

Well, they couldn't use Godzilla for copyright reasons...

But I don't think the Tarrasque is bland. It's simply a huge engine of mindless destruction (as opposed to intelligent monsters like ancient dragons). It is only bland if you use it without a context - as a random encounter in the wilderness, for example.

It's better to use it in the following way: The Tarrasque has been sighted, and it is heading into the direction of your city. And none of the inhabitants is anywhere nearl level 20 - including you - and no one has a Wish or Miracle spell available, either.

So, what do you do?


In this scenario, it is even perfectly possible to create adventures for first level characters. The news of the approaching monster will cause widespread panic and chaos as everyone attempts to flee, which offers plenty of opportunities for heroic deeds - or profit. Higher level characters will quest for the power to destroy it - or, more realistically, to distract it into another direction. How about trying to lure it to the neighboring kingdom you have been at war with? But perhaps they have done the same to you, and this is the reason why the Tarrasque is attacking your city! There could be desperate fights between different groups and organizations breaking out near the Tarrasque about who gets to lure him where - but of course, the party that gets too close to the Tarrasque and attracts its attention looses automatically...

To sum it up, don't stage the appearance of the Tarrasque as a combat encounter. Stage it as a disaster movie!

Positively. Ingenious.

 

[Nebulous]

To sum it up, don't stage the appearance of the Tarrasque as a combat encounter. Stage it as a disaster movie!

Yeah, that works for me.

 

[Fieari]

If you find that the CR 20 Tarrasque isn't up to your standards, try this one: http://immortalshandbook.com/freestuff5.htm

Upper Krust reverse engineered how to derive statistics from things like size and such, and noticed that the Tarrasque is actually quite weak for how it's described, and so used his system to develop how the Tarrasque should be.

This version of the Tarrasque is even better for the disaster movie scenario, I think.